Faster, Higher, Stronger

So, Beijing, here comes the world.  The world will bear witness to the opening ceremonies of the XXIX Olympiad in China this August 8.

To fly high again with the Olympic flag and flags of all participating nations is the Olympics Latin motto* Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger)* first introduced in the 1924 Games in Paris.  The Olympic logo of five rings was designed earlier, in 1913, and first used in 1920 at the Antwerp Olympic Games.

The rings represent the five continents of the world, with the Americas considered as one continent.  The five colors of the rings were chosen because all national flags in the world are bound to have any of the five colors.

The Games of antiquity (776 BC to AD 393) in Olympia, Greece was revived in 1896, whence modern Olympics began.  (The Olympiad is the four-year Olympics period; summer games are held during the first year of an Olympiad, the winter games during the third year.)

One of the many myths on the origin of the ancient Games is that it was Hercules (Greek Heracles) who, after completing his 12 labors, created the Olympic Games in honor of his father Zeus.  He walked 400 strides and called the stretch that he covered a stadion (Latin stadium).  This later became a unit of distance, which is why until now a stadium track has a circumference of 400 meters, the distance a runner travels in one lap.

Interest in reviving the ancient Games began in 1833 in a poem “Dialogue of the Dead” by a Greek poet.  By 1859, through a Greek philanthropist, the first Olympics revival was held in a city square in Athens with two countries participating* Greece and the Ottoman Empire.  The philanthropist had the ancient Panathenian stadium refurbished for two more Olympics, in 1870 and 1875.

Then in 1894 a French nobleman, Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, presented his idea in an international congress in Paris.  Thus was the International Olympics Committee (IOC) born.  It was decided that the first IOC Olympic Games would be in 1896 in Athens, with a Greek as the first IOC president.  Modern Olympics thus began.

The French baron’s interest in the international games began in his search for a reason of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.  He thought that the French were not physically fit, which can be improved with athletic games and training.  He also believed that  nations can be brought closer when the youth compete in sports rather than in war.

But the Olympics didn’t bring world peace as the baron dreamed. Three Olympiads passed by with the Olympics cancelled* the 1916 Games because of World War I and those in 1940 and 1944 because of World War II.

The first IOC Olympic games in Athens had 241 athletes from 14 nations, and a thousand journalists.  Women athletes first made their appearance during the second  Olympic Games held in Paris.

More than a hundred years later, when the 2004 Olympics was held in Athens again, there were already over 11 thousand athletes from 203 nationalities.  (The IOC accepts nations that are not members of the United Nations, which has 193 member-countries.)

Our country first participated in the Paris Olympics of 1924 with a solitary athlete, runner David Nepomuceno.  This year we are fielding 15 athletes to root for.  (China is fielding 639 athletes.)   We’ve earned an Olympic bronze medal in 1964 and a silver in 1996.  Who knows by what miracle we can do better, especially if we do away with the self-flagellating internal politics in our domestic sports.

Doubtless we send the best athletes, coaches, and trainers, but it’s the other delegates who are up for grabs.  Embarrassingly, in the Seoul Olympics, it was alleged that there were more chaperones than athletes.  Some of them disappeared.  Riding on the Olympics to find jobs as illegals in an Olympics host country doesn’t bode well for athletic performance.

So far we’ve earned no gold medal.  Our Incentives Act provides PhP5M to an athlete who brings home the gold.  Private donors have raised that to PhP15M.  Fancying myself a has-been sprinter (yes, years ago I competed more than once in smalltime 100m dash contests… and never won; someone else was always faster, higher, stronger), it’s just too late in the day for me to train and deserve that amount.

-(3 Aug 2008)